This week saw the release of the eighth (and final) issue of Marvel Comics’ second-season adaptation of the smash-hit Disney+ live-action series Star Wars: The Mandalorian, and below are my thoughts on this installment from writer Rodney Barnes and illustrator Steven Cummings.
As much as The Mandalorian comics adaptation has grown on me over the past couple years, I was sad to see this final issue of season 2 open with a mistake: the recap identifies the Dark Troopers who kidnapped Grogu as “death troopers,” which as we all know is an entirely different type of trooper. But other than that blunder (that I don’t quite hope anyone got fired over), I’d actually say “The Rescue” is the episode where Barnes and his collaborator Cummings finally nail the formula of translating this series from screen to page. The pacing is near-perfect, the drawings are spot-on, and at long last the emotion is there.
For those who don’t remember, “The Rescue” is the climactic episode where Din Djarin, Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, and Cara Dune recruit the help of Bo-Katan Kryze and her fellow Mandalorian cohort Koska Reeves to save poor little Grogu from the grasp of Moff Gideon aboard his Imperial Light Cruiser. This was the installment that kind of brought the house down at the end of season two, mostly because of the shocking appearance of Luke Skywalker at the conclusion, but also due to it being pretty much chock-full of really cool stuff. And the team of Barnes and Cummings have done a fairly bang-up job in bringing all of that to their comics adaptation here.
This was one of the few times where reading through the comic came very close to approximating the feeling of actually watching the show, and actually made me really appreciate the choices being made in how to break this story down to fit the number of pages allotted, and which moments to focus on above others. The action sequences capture the energy of those setpieces from the show, and as I mentioned above, the emotional beats resonate largely in the way they should (and did, when consuming this narrative in live-action). But above all else, this final installment of the season 2 comic made me hope Marvel does continue the adaptation with The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian season 3– a desire that was bolstered by the message “The Mandalorian… and Grogu… Will Return!” on the final page. We know that duo is coming to the big screen before too long, but it would also be great to see them back in the comics.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian #8 is available now wherever comic books are sold.